Melbury Abbas
Encyclopedia
Melbury Abbas is a village in north Dorset
, England
, situated between Shaftesbury
and Blandford Forum on Cranborne Chase
. The village has a population
of 301 (2001), 34.4% are retired. 6.1% of dwellings are second home
s.
The village is known for its traffic problems as it is situated on what has become the main road between Shaftesbury and Blandford. The road, which is not officially classified at all, takes much of the traffic that should use the A350 primary route through the Blackmore Vale
a few miles to the west, as the hilltop road is straighter and passes through fewer villages. Melbury Abbas is the only bottleneck on the hilltop road, where it dips down into the valley and narrows. Dorset County Council have considered bypass schemes, but none have got further than preliminary stages as the village is surrounded by important conservation land.
There is a small airfield in the adjacent village of Compton Abbas.
In 2001 Madonna and Guy Ritchie bought and occupied Ashcombe House, a Georgian manor house in Wiltshire, about five kilometres to the east of Melbury Abbas. They caused some controversy when they tried to close public byways which ran through their land. They were subsequently divorced in November 2008.
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, situated between Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury is a town in Dorset, England, situated on the A30 road near the Wiltshire border 20 miles west of Salisbury. The town is built 718 feet above sea level on the side of a chalk and greensand hill, which is part of Cranborne Chase, the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset...
and Blandford Forum on Cranborne Chase
Cranborne Chase
Cranborne Chase is a Chalk plateau in central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. The plateau is part of the English Chalk Formation and is adjacent to Salisbury Plain and the West Wiltshire Downs in the north, the Dorset Downs to the south west and the...
. The village has a population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
of 301 (2001), 34.4% are retired. 6.1% of dwellings are second home
Second home
Second home may refer to:* Vacation property* Pied-à-terre* Second Home , an album by Marié Digby...
s.
The village is known for its traffic problems as it is situated on what has become the main road between Shaftesbury and Blandford. The road, which is not officially classified at all, takes much of the traffic that should use the A350 primary route through the Blackmore Vale
Blackmore Vale
The Blackmore Vale is a vale, or wide valley, in north Dorset, and to a lesser extent south Somerset and southwest Wiltshire in southern England. The vale is part of the Stour valley...
a few miles to the west, as the hilltop road is straighter and passes through fewer villages. Melbury Abbas is the only bottleneck on the hilltop road, where it dips down into the valley and narrows. Dorset County Council have considered bypass schemes, but none have got further than preliminary stages as the village is surrounded by important conservation land.
There is a small airfield in the adjacent village of Compton Abbas.
In 2001 Madonna and Guy Ritchie bought and occupied Ashcombe House, a Georgian manor house in Wiltshire, about five kilometres to the east of Melbury Abbas. They caused some controversy when they tried to close public byways which ran through their land. They were subsequently divorced in November 2008.